knock on wood / @jamiechr
“quit movin– ”
like usual, his actions are a contradiction of his own instructions, unskilled fingers fumbling with the dark tips of jamie’s hair as he tries – somewhat pitifully it seems, if her consequent unimpressed snort is anything to go by – to braid the locks. he’s caught his bottom lip between his teeth, eyebrows drawn together with the concentration of someone doing something much more serious than playing hairdresser for the night.
the right strand pursues the left one. he’s suddenly reminded of the first time he had met her, feet pattering against the ground as he chased after her in the empty room next to the main hall of the gala. they had been younger then – her, quieter, and him louder. hansol remembers going home and telling his parents he liked the ahn’s older daughter.
the world spins on its axis, a constant reminder than everything comes and goes. ahn jamie doesn’t go.
she claps when VICTORY flashes onto the tv screen. DEFEAT might as well be stamped across his forehead as he drops the half completed more-tangles-than-braid braid with disappointment, sliding down the sofa to sit next to her on the floor.
“it’s ugly because you wouldn’t stay still,” he huffs, pushing the half eaten tray of cheese ddeokbokki from the nearby stall towards her. the food’s been long forgotten on the table, beer warmed and chicken cooled to room temperature, but he opens the drink for her anyways. at the back of his mind, he asks himself when the right time to point out the bags under her eyes and abnormally lethargic tone is.
he decides promptly that it isn’t now.
he reaches up behind her, swiping his controller from where he’d haphazardly tossed it onto the pillow like an abandoned toy. “you can’t say you carried me this time. i wasn’t even playing for the last ten minutes.”














